Friday, February 1, 2013

Untimed by Andy Gavin: First Chapter: Innovative Book Tours

Charlie’s the kind of boy that no one notices. Hell, even his own mother can’t remember his name. And girls? The invisible man gets more dates.

As if that weren’t enough, when a mysterious clockwork man tries to kill him in modern day Philadelphia, and they tumble through a hole into 1725 London, Charlie realizes even the laws of time don’t take him seriously.

Still, this isn’t all bad. In fact, there’s this girl, another time traveler, who not only remembers his name, but might even like him! Unfortunately, Yvaine carries more than her share of baggage: like a baby boy and at least two ex-boyfriends! One’s famous, the other’s murderous, and Charlie doesn’t know who is the bigger problem.

When one kills the other — and the other is nineteen year-old Ben Franklin — things get really crazy. Can their relationship survive? Can the future? Charlie and Yvaine are time travelers, they can fix this — theoretically — but the rules are complicated and the stakes are history as we know it.

And there's one more wrinkle: he can only travel into the past, and she can only travel into the future!

“Time
isn’t right for either of you yet,” she says. Whatever that means.

I
snag the thinnest volume and hop onto my bed to read. Not much else to do since
I don’t have friends and school makes me feel even more the ghost.

*
* *

Mrs.
Pinkle, my ninth-grade homeroom teacher, pauses on my name during roll call.
Like she does every morning.

“Charlie
Horologe,” she says, squinting at the laminated chart, then at me, as if seeing
both for the first time.

“Here.”

On
the bright side, I always get B’s no matter what I write on the paper.

In
Earth Science, the teacher describes a primitive battery built from a glass of
salt water covered in tin foil. She calls it a Leyden jar. I already know about
them from Ben Franklin’s autobiography — he used one to kill and cook a turkey,
which I doubt would fly with the school board.

The
teacher beats the topic to death, so I practice note-taking in the cipher Dad
taught me over the weekend. He shows me all sorts of cool things — when he’s
around. The system’s simple, just twenty-six made-up letters to replace the regular
ones. Nobody else knows them. I write in highlighter and outline in red, which
makes the page look like some punk wizard’s spell book. My science notes
devolve into a story about how the blonde in the front row invites me to help
her with her homework. At her house. In her bedroom. With her parents out of
town.

Good
thing it’s in cipher.

After
school is practice, and that’s better. With my slight build and long legs, I’m
good at track and field — not that the rest of the team notices. A more
observant coach might call me a well-rounded athlete.

The
pole vault is my favorite, and only one other kid can even do it right. Last
month at the Pennsylvania state regionals, I cleared 16’ 4”, which for my age
is like world class. Davy — that’s the other guy — managed just 14’ 8”.

And
won. As if I never ran that track, planted the pole in the box, and threw
myself over the bar. The judges were looking somewhere else? Or maybe their
score sheets blew away in the wind.

I’m
used to it.

*
* *

Dad
is nothing if not scheduled. He and Sophie visit twice a year, two weeks in
October, and two weeks in January for my birthday. But after my aunt’s little
aside, I don’t know if I can wait three months for the big reveal, whatever it
is. So I catch them in his study.

“Dad,
why don’t you just tell me?”

He
looks up from his cheesesteak and the book he’s reading — small, with only a
few shiny metallic pages. I haven’t seen it before, which is strange, since I
comb through all his worldly possessions whenever he’s away.

“I’m
old enough to handle it.” I sound brave, but even Mom never looks him in the
eye. And he’s never home — it’s not like I have practice at this. My stomach
twists. I might not like what he has to say.

“Man
is not God.”

One
of his favorite expressions, but what the hell is it supposed to mean?

“Fink.”
For some reason Aunt Sophie always calls him that. “Show him the pages.”

He
sighs and gathers up the weird metallic book.

“This
is between the three of us. No need to stress your mother.”

What
about stressing me? He stares at some imaginary point on the ceiling, like he
always does when he lectures.

“Our
family has—”

The
front doorbell rings. His gaze snaps down, his mouth snaps shut. Out in the
hall, I hear my mom answer, then men’s voices.

“Charlie,”
Dad says, “go see who it is.”

“But—”

“Close
the door behind you.”

*
* *

I
stomp down the hall. Mom is talking to the police. Two cops and a guy in a
suit.

“Ma’am,”
Uniform with Mustache says, “is your husband home?”

“May
I help you?” she asks.

“We
have a warrant.” He fumbles in his jacket and hands her an official-looking
paper.

“This
is for John Doe,” she tells him.

The
cop turns to the man in the suit, deep blue, with a matching bowler hat like
some guy on PBS. The dude even carries a cane — not the old-lady-with-a-limp
type, more stroll-in-the-park. Blue Suit — a detective? — tilts forward to
whisper in the cop’s ear. I can’t hear anything but I notice his outfit is
crisp. Every seam stands out bright and clear. Everything else about him too.

“We
need to speak to your husband,” the uniformed cop says.

I
mentally kick myself for not ambushing Dad an hour earlier.

Eventually,
the police tire of the runaround and shove past me as if I don’t exist. I tag
along to watch them search the house. When they reach the study, Dad and Sophie
are gone. The window’s closed and bolted from the inside.

All
the other rooms are empty too, but this doesn’t stop them from slitting every
sofa cushion and uncovering my box of secret DVDs.

*
* *

Mom
and I don’t talk about Dad’s hasty departure, but I do hear her call the police
and ask about the warrant.

They
have no idea who she’s talking about.

Yesterday,
I thought Dad was about to deliver the Your
mother and I have grown apart speech. Now I’m thinking more along the lines
of secret agent or international kingpin.

But
the months crawl by, business as usual, until my birthday comes and goes
without any answers — or the promised visit from Dad. I try not to let on that
it bothers me. He’s never missed my birthday, but then, the cops never came
before, either.

Mom
and I celebrate with cupcakes. Mine is jammed with sixteen candles, one extra
for good luck.

I
pry up the wrapping paper from the corner of her present.

“It’s
customary to blow out the candles first,” Mom says.

“More
a guideline than a rule,” I say. “Call it advanced
reconnaissance.” That’s a phrase I picked up from Sophie.

Mom
does a dorky eye roll, but I get the present open and find she did well by me,
the latest iPhone — even if she skimped on the gigabytes. I use it to take two
photos of her and then, holding it out, one of us together.

She
smiles and pats my hand.

“This
way, when you’re out on a date you can check in.”

I’m
thinking more about surfing the web during class.

“Mom,
girls never notice me.”

“How
about Michelle next door? She’s cute.”

Mom’s
right about the cute. We live in a duplex, an old house her family bought like
a hundred years ago. Our tenants, the Montags, rent the other half, and we’ve
celebrated every Fourth of July together as long as I can remember.

My
throat tightens. “There’s a father-son track event this week.” A month ago, I
went into orbit when I discovered it fell during Dad’s visit, but now it’s just
a major bummer — and a pending embarrassment.

She
kisses me on the forehead.

“He’ll
be here if he can, honey. And if not, I’ll race. You don’t get your speed from
his side of the family.”

True
enough. She was a college tennis champ and he’s a flat-foot who likes foie
gras. But still.

*
* *

Our
history class takes a field trip to Independence Park, where the teacher
prattles on in front of the Liberty Bell. I’ve probably read more about it than
she has.

Michelle
is standing nearby with a girlfriend. The other day I tapped out a script on my
phone — using our family cipher — complete with her possible responses to my
asking her out. Maybe Mom’s right.

I
slide over.

“Hey,
Michelle, I’m really looking forward to next Fourth of July.”

“It’s
January.” She has a lot of eyeliner on, which would look pretty sexy if she
wasn’t glaring at me. “Do I know you from somewhere?”

That
wasn’t in my script. I drift away. Being forgettable has advantages.

I
tighten the laces on my trainers then flop a leg up on the fence to stretch.
Soon as I’m loose enough, I sprint up the park toward the red brick hulk of
Independence Hall. The teachers will notice the headcount is one short but of
course they’ll have trouble figuring out who’s missing. And while a bunch of
cops are lounging about — national historic landmark and all — even if one
stops me, he won’t remember my name long enough to write up a ticket.

The
sky gleams with that cloudless blue that sometimes graces Philly. The air is
crisp and smells of wood smoke. I consider lapping the building.

Then
I notice the man exiting the hall.

He
glides out the white-painted door behind someone else and seesaws down the
steps to the slate courtyard. He wears a deep blue suit and a matching bowler
hat. His stride is rapid and he taps his walking stick against the pavement
like clockwork.

The
police detective.

I
shift into a jog and follow him down the block toward the river. I don’t think
he sees me, but he has this peculiar way of looking around, pivoting his head
side to side as he goes.

It’s
hard to explain what makes him different. His motions are stiff but he cuts
through space without apparent effort. Despite the dull navy outfit, he looks
sharper than the rest of the world, more in focus.

Like
Dad and Sophie.

The
man turns left at Chestnut and Third, and I follow him into Franklin Court.

He
stops inside the skeleton of Ben Franklin’s missing house. Some idiots tore it
down two hundred years ago, but for the bicentennial the city erected a steel
‘ghost house’ to replace it.

I
tuck myself behind one of the big white girders and watch.

The
man unbuttons his suit and winds himself.

Yes,
that’s right. He winds himself. Like a clock. There’s no shirt under his jacket
— just clockwork guts, spinning gears, and whirling cogs. There’s even a
rocking pendulum. He takes a T-shaped key from his pocket, sticks it in his
torso, and cranks.

Hardly
police standard procedure.

Clueless
tourists pass him without so much as a sideways glance. And I always assumed
the going unnoticed thing was just me.

He
stops winding and scans the courtyard, calibrating his head on first one point
then another while his finger spins brass dials on his chest.

I
must have gasped, because he looks at me, his head ratcheting around 270
degrees until our eyes lock.

Glass
eyes. Glass eyes set in a face of carved ivory. His mouth opens and the ivory
mask that is his face parts along his jaw line to reveal more cogs.

CHIME.
The sound reverberates through the empty bones of Franklin Court.

He
takes his cane from under his arm and draws a blade from it as a stage-magician
might a handkerchief.

CHIME.
He raises the thin line of steel and glides in my direction.

CHIME.
Heart beating like a rabbit’s, I scuttle across the cobblestones and fling
myself over a low brick wall.

CHIME.
His walking-stick-cum-sword strikes against the brick and throws sparks. He’s
so close I hear his clockwork innards ticking, a tiny metallic tinkle.

CHIME.
I roll away from the wall and spring to my feet. He bounds over in pursuit.

CHIME.
I backpedal. I could run faster if I turned around, but a stab in the back
isn’t high on my wishlist.

CHIME.
He strides toward me, one hand on his hip, the other slices the air with his
rapier. An older couple shuffles by and glances his way, but apparently they
don’t see what I see.

CHIME.
I stumble over a rock, snatch it up, and hurl it at him. Thanks to shot put
practice, it strikes him full in the face, stopping him cold.

CHIME.
He tilts his head from side to side. I see a thin crack in his ivory mask, but
otherwise he seems unharmed.

CHIME.
I dance to the side, eying the pavement, find another rock and grab it.

CHIME.
We stand our ground, he with his sword and me with my stone.

“Your
move, Timex!” I hope I sound braver than I feel.

CHIME.
Beneath the clockwork man, a hole opens.

The
manhole-sized circle in the cobblestones seethes and boils, spilling pale light
up into the world. He stands above it, legs spread, toes on the pavement, heels
dipping into nothingness.

The
sun dims in the sky. Like an eclipse — still visible, just not as bright. My
heart threatens to break through my ribs, but I inch closer.

The
mechanical man brings his legs together and drops into the hole. The seething
boiling hole.

I
step forward and look down….

Into
a whirlpool that could eat the Titanic for
breakfast. But there’s no water, only a swirling tube made of a million
pulverized galaxies. Not that my eyes can really latch onto anything inside,
except for the man. His crisp dark form shrinks into faraway brightness.

Is
this where Dad goes when he drops in
on someone? Is the clockwork dude his rival
researcher?

The
sun brightens, and as it does, the hole starts to contract. Sharp edges of
pavement eat into it, closing fast. I can’t let him get away. Somehow we’re all
connected. Me, the mechanical man, Sophie, and Dad.

I
take a step forward and let myself fall.

Andy Gavin is a serial creative, polymath, novelist, entrepreneur, computer programmer, author, foodie, and video game creator. He co-founded video game developer Naughty Dog and co-created Crash Bandicoot and Jak & Daxter. He started numerous companies, has been lead programmer on video games that have sold more than forty million copies, and has written two novels including The Darkening Dream, a dark historical fantasy that puts the bite back in vampires.

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